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Stephen King has teamed up with another writer once again; this time to bring us a novella-length tale featuring King's favorite antagonist. In Gwendy's Button Box, The Man in Black, Walter o'Dim or whatever moniker you favor has a dark task for a little girl whose insecurities make her the perfect target for an evil wizard. Richard Chizmar, editor, author and founder of Cemetery Dance, is King's wingman for this exploit into the deranged hijinks Flagg gets up to when he's not busy tormenting Roland.I'm going to spoil a few little things ahead. No biggies.
Gwendy's Button Box is about a gal named Gwendy who is putting forth a Herculean effort to lose weight by running up heart-attack inducing steps in her hometown when she meets The Man in Black. He's struck by something about her and decides to task her with safeguarding a strange box covered in buttons. Gwendy takes the challenge, little knowing that she's made a deal with the proverbial devil.
Like any good mysterious magical object, Gwendy's button box offers rewards and consequences. What's different about Gwendy's button box is that she can seemingly avoid the consequences if she is able to resist an almost supernatural urge to push the box's buttons. Soon, the novella becomes a tug of war between a growing young woman and the powers of the peculiar box. At first lacking in immediate threats to get the blood pumping, it isn't long before the sick imaginations of two accomplished writers are put to work.
Good co-writing makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the reader to tell who is at the wheel in any given section of the book. (I'm currently challenging myself to see where Owen King has taken the lead in Sleeping Beauties. I'm failing.) Whether the writers have done a great job of editing each other, have a solid sense of the work's voice or both, they manage to keep disbelief suspended with a fluid narrative. Chizmar and King do that wonderfully for Gwendy's Button Box. I'm hoping they decide to take on something a bit longer in the future.
Shelly Barclay
